The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s6.135

c10.s6.135

of Kabul, the Parsii, who have already been considered¹ and who after the invasion of Parthia had separated from the main Saca body and had gone north-eastward by Alexander’s route via Alexandria-Ghazni to Kabul, which was in their hands some little while before 87 (on the date see App. 9); presumably they took it when Antialcidas died, and they may have had something to do with the break-up of his kingdom after his death. There is evidence that, with Kabul, they occupied some part of the Paropamisadae, for Ptolemy places them there and also gives two villages of theirs in that country, Parsia and Parsiana.² It has been suggested that a people called Parsus, mentioned by Pāṇini as somewhere in the Paropamisadae, were the same as Ptolemy’s Parsii.³ No one can say whether this were so or not; were it true, then the reason why the Parsii made for the Paropamisadae rather than Sind might have been that they had kinsfolk there, a deposit from one of the earlier invasions. To these Parsii of Kabul (Kophen, Ki-pin), whom in conformity with usage I shall sometimes have to call Sacas, belong the kings or rulers Spalyris (Spalahores), his son Spalagadames, and Spalirises.⁴ Like all the Saca kings they struck a bilingual coinage, Greek and Kharoshthī; the find-spots of their coins point to a continuing connection with Arachosia, the one province outside of India and the Paropamisadae where Kharoshthī legends might occur,⁵ and probably the centre of their power was Ghazni and Kabul (App. 9), a combination not uncommon in later history. I shall return to these rulers later; here I only want to point out that during the interregnum in the Paropamisadae the Parsii of Kabul may have occupied a good deal of that country.